The mostly-morubund Hurd project is well known for what it's not: the kernel at the heart of the GNU/Linux system. But there's a long and interesting story about what it could have been, too. From Linux User magazine: "The design of the Hurd was an attempt to embody the spirit and promise of the free software movement in code." Those are mighty ambitions, and this story is as much about competing visions as competing kernels. Says Thomas Bushnell: "My first choice was to take the BSD 4.4-Lite release and make a kernel. I knew the code, I knew how to do it. It is now perfectly obvious to me that this would have succeeded splendidly and the world would be a very different place today." This is a well-written and fascinating read.

Linux is just a Kernel So android is in fact "Linux" but sans GNU userland and tool Android/Linux would be a accurate name

Yet another one infected with FSF propaganda. If you stop mindlessly copying stuff you 've read in fsf.org, you 'll find out that in the previous posts we enstablished that Linux was an OS before it took any GNU code. Hence, it wasn't "just a kernel". It was an OS.

And the "wouldn't exist without GCC"? Hilarious man. Not even Microsoft requires programmers that compile with visual studio to call their programs "MS/foo" or "VisualStudio/foo"

PS: Android (the new defense for the GNU/Linux nonsense) is a fork of Linux, that uses the kernel part of Linux only (and even that is modified).

I know Stallman acts super offended everytime someone says "Linux" to refer to the whole OS and he managed to convince you it should be true. I know Stallman says that Linux was "not usable by itself" (WRONG wrong wrong, Linux was BOOTABLE and usable before it took any GNU code). Sorry, Linux started as an OS, was an OS before it took any GNU code. Cheers

Essentially, Linus took massive amounts of GNU code to advance his Linux OS project without giving any credit to GNU, just like the GPL allows. Stallman tried his own medicine and doesn't want to admit it's bitter. For that reason, he tries to spin the facts by claiming Linux was a kernel project and not an OS project (never mind Linux had non-kernel code like code for booting the kernel from day 1, and hence was an OS project not a kernel project from day 1*). Essentially Stallman tries to convince people GNU used Linux, while it's the other way around. Linux used GNU to become a better Linux.

Failing to do that, he just pounds the table and demands credit while his own GPL doesn't have a give credit clause. Failing that, he just resorts to "Waaahhh!!! I did all that work that yiu took. Do me a favor and put GNU next to the Linux name"

*for people who still don't get it: If it has kernel code only - kernel project. If it has kernel and booting code - OS project.

PS: Fun fact: Stallman started a whole crusade to remiove a give credit clause from the original BSD license.